Monte Carlo, Mille Miglia, Nurburgring .
These are the deadliest curves, filled with the legends of men, machines and immortality.
Join me for a tour of the giants of racing, from 1896 through the 1960's, and their pictures and stories.
Blood, victory, defeat and courage; often in the same race.

Friday, November 29, 2013

In 1967, Pontiac was staring down the four-barrel of the highly-anticipated Camaro, and needed something to draw eyeballs back to their sporty, but six-months behind schedule Firebird line.

Enter "Miss Hurst".

Linda Vaughn was a curvaceous, vivacious blonde who was the secondary (and sometimes the main) attraction at circuit races in the late 1960's and early 70's. She was the sexy symbol in the flesh for the Hurst Shifter line, and she always had an easy time drawing men's focus to her products. She congratulated racers in the Winners Circle, and did it in skimpy gold lame outfits (sewn by her mother).

The promotion thought up by Pontiac's Jim Wangers was perfect; it was open to active serviceman only, and not only included a date with the blonde bombshell, but a trip out of the jungles of Vietnam and a ride in the pace car at the Daytona 500.

Due to the morality issues of setting up a single serviceman, deprived of female companionship for months, with the bountiful Miss Vaughn, a "conveniently" married man was declared the lucky winner. ADJ3 Leonard Hobbs and his wife partook in the weekend festivities together along with Linda, and it remained a chaste affair with the oft-chased Miss Vaughn.Still, it kept the hopes and spirits high of a lot of army grunts, dreaming in their cots in that far-off country, of a possible rendezvous with the "siren of stock cars".

The lovely Linda finally dashed the hopes of the men in uniform when she married racer Bill Tidwell in 1972, but she continued to promote Hurst and others with her incredible charm (and other assets) well into the 1980's.